Having Difficulty Understanding Planned Spending Details
Been fiddling around in Planned Spending this morning. Haven't used it extensively before but I'm trying out some new workflows in Simplifi.
I have this notice that I've gone over my Planned Spending on Groceries:
So I clicked on it to dig into it a little further. The report I got seems very confusing.
The green arrows/boxes are what I expected to see, but I got thrown for a loop at the bottom red box of $315. Since I'm only looking at one Planned Spending Item, I expected this number to be the total of Grocery Bills for the month, not the current total of all Planned Spending items. In fact, this drill-down report doesn't list the category for the month anywhere. I see how much I've allotted, but nowhere does it show me what I've spent - just how much I've overspent. The Planned Spending Total amount seems to add no value to this particular report.
It's further complicated by having a couple of splits for the month, which represent purchases that are not Groceries, so without drilling into each split transaction and writing down some numbers manually, there's no way to see a total of what was spent in this problem category.
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye
Comments
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@ajbopp, thanks for posting to the Community regarding this!
It appears that regardless of what Planned Spending item is selected, the "over spent" and "total" amounts for all of Planned Spending will be displayed in this static bar across the bottom:
With that, this does appear to be by design, and, if it's a recent change, may have been added as part of the Planned Spending Summary. I'd suggest creating an Idea post if you'd like to see a change to this so you can rally some votes from other users.
I hope this helps!
-Coach Natalie
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I am trying to understand why payments made are not calculating in my planned spending? for instance, I have my mortgage payment in my spending plan, which is paid the first of every month, but the planned spending shows I still have that amount available, it is not picking up the payment? what am I doing wrong? I am still in my first month, and I have downloaded transactions from the past year and for some odd reason, it also does not show that I paid my mortgage last month either? Thanks
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@Ericsmom items will only be reflected in Planned Spending if they are not already accounted for under Bills and Income. In this case, it's it possible your mortgage payment is set up as a monthly recurring bill?
Planned Spending is designed to capture expenses that are known will happen but not necessarily when and/or how much. Such as Groceries. Or for example I have a Planned Spending item to capture Entertainment, but I have certain recurring bills such as an Audible subscription that I gather under Bills, and so they do not appear in Planned Spending. If they did, they would be double counted and throw off the month's totals in the Spend Plan.
Anthony Bopp
Simplifi User Since July 2022Money talks. But all my paycheck ever says is goodbye1 -
That is confusing made worse by the split. Not sure if there’s an Idea Post related to your red boxes, but there is one related to your split. Personally, I’d love for Simplifi to reconsider the way they display splits in lists like Planned Spending, Watchlists, & Reports to reduce momentary confusion - by excluding the split amount from immediate view. Here’s an Idea Post for that…
Chris
Quicken Desktop user since 2014.
New to Simplifi in 2021.0
